gozzterLeave a Comment on Speak now, or forever hold your peace

Speak now, or forever hold your peace

I feel it is incumbent upon me to confess that I, unlike almost all of my friends, seem to have too much time on my hands. That they all seem to have a constant stream of tasks to perform, may well have something to do with their connubial responsibilities, but as my own unescorted autumn approaches, I find I am consumed not by assignments, but rather by glossaric worries: there are simply too many words to sort through, too many turns of phrases, too many idioms dancing in my head.

Although meticulously appropriate responses were once a source of pride for me, now even an unexpected event like greeting a long forgotten friend, or seeing a truly outrageous fashion on a mannikin in a store, overwhelms my resistance to quoting some once-clever saying to anybody unfortunate enough to happen to be walking past au moment critique, as it were. The words seem to pop up out of nowhere, and sometimes for no apparent reason other than their similarity to something I remembered reading. In a way, I suppose I sometimes resemble the character Mrs. Malaprop (from a 1775 Sheridan play ‘The Rivals’). I mean, there I go, eh? Anyway, in his play, Mrs. Malaprop constantly uses wrong words mistaking them for the correct words which have similar sounds. I just venture a step further and use wrong phrases. Incorrect quotations… I mean I don’t scream them out, or anything; it’s often more a whispered quote that I have inadvertently misremembered. I forget words, I sometimes grope for names, but the phrases seem to arrive intact.

I really hope that this habit doesn’t change my ranking on the spectrum or anything… I have always prided myself as being somewhere decent on the Bell Curve, but I suppose things change with Age: creative badinage, or lack of it, makes you slide one way or the other on it as the years accumulate; nobody can hope to ride the mean forever, eh? Outlook changes and  purposes shift; it’s all a matter of flaunting one’s agency isn’t it? I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately, however: I wonder if there are times I don’t always qualify for agency…

Agency seems to depend on whether anybody -or anything– is affected by it, and so it would be unwise to bestow it helter-skelter.  Perhaps agency illustrates my problem, though: if something  seemed clever at a particular time, then returns like an unwelcome guest, am I its agent, or merely a delegate? Can agency apply unbeknownst to those who might just try it out on a lark, as it were? I mean is it something possessed by anything which appears to interact purposely with us, or can it be bestowed on things like rocks or pottery when the mood strikes?

I think my seemingly random perambulations were exacerbated by an article I read about the ‘speaking objects’ of ancient Greece.[i] “I am the kylix of Korax” – ‘so read the Greek letters… which are inscribed on a shallow cup used to sip wine. It was found on the Mediterranean island of Rhodes and dated to the late 8th century BCE. Ancient Greeks had only recently adopted the Semitic writing system used by seafaring Phoenicians and adapted it to their own language.’

But there is something really interesting about that: the kylix (cup) spoke for itself, and in the first person. It was a non-human object that was assigned agency! For me, that is an important step: ‘[I]magine a world in which writing is new, in which it is unclear what kind of conventions govern written communication. In such a world, the use of the first person would have allowed the novel technology of writing to simulate the most fundamental form of communication in an oral society: conversation.’ It would truly be a speaking object!

Nowadays, of course, we almost take for granted that things can speak to us. I mean if a refrigerator can sense its contents and complain that it doesn’t have enough milk, then what’s so special about an ancient kylix seeming to inform you about something, albeit not out loud? Korax’s kylix was not, after all, simply the medium of its owner’s message, but also its speaker. It was able to inspire confidence because it’s message was not as subject to a change of mind- it was written, and not spoken. In those very early days, they likely had a lot to learn about the trustworthiness of the written word…

Still, in terms of agency, how should we judge the kylix? One could argue that only Korax -presumably the writer- possessed the agency, although I think a case could be made that he transferred his agency to the kylix. It’s much like receiving and therefore being guided by the advice of a dictionary definition, or the solution to a math problem in a text book.

Ahh, but did the kylix (or the textbook) intend to offer advice, or was it imposed on it –lent to it? Neither of them acted with purpose. And yet they were written for a purpose: to instruct the reader. If I lend you a pen so you can write down my phone number, have I merely enabled that with the pen, or can I juxtapose that and suggest that it was the pen, that enabled my purpose to be carried out? It was surely more than an accident that the pen was able to act with purpose.

A silly argument, you say? But pens were designed for a purpose, which they duly enact. They can make mistakes, though, so would that be included in the purpose for which you, the owner and agent-in-chief, lent the pen, as well? Does it require agency to make a mistake… or did I transfer more than a pen: did I transfer a mistake…? For that matter, have I merely committed a logical fallacy in trying to convince you of my argument -a circulus in probando (another thing that just popped into my head)?

So, how much agency is this essay trying to usurp…? I mean where does the buck stop?

[i]https://psyche.co/ideas/i-am-an-article-about-the-speaking-objects-of-ancient-greece

, , , ,

Leave a comment

search previous next tag category expand menu location phone mail time cart zoom edit close